


let me kiss your face

by lazyfish



Series: wilderness [4]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M, Pumpkin carving
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-01
Updated: 2019-10-01
Packaged: 2020-11-09 00:48:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20844794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lazyfish/pseuds/lazyfish
Summary: Three weeks after the birth of the twins, the Morse-Hunter family carves some pumpkins.





	let me kiss your face

The month before Halloween, Hunter has discovered, is a bad time to have babies when you also have a four-year-old. Especially when Halloween is that four-year-old’s favorite holiday and she wants to do absolutely everything festive.

Hadley’s gone on excursions with her various aunts and uncles to do Halloween-themed things, including a corn maze and a hay ride, but when she comes back to the Lighthouse, she still wants to spend time with her parents and get  _ them _ to do Halloween activities with them. It’s all well and good, and Hunter’s beyond glad his daughter loves him and wants to spend time with him, but having two babies is more than twice as hard as having one, and he’s drowning a little. Balancing the babies and Hadley is a handful and a half, made even harder by the festivities.

Pumpkin carving had been May’s idea. It’s an activity that’s Halloween-related, but still lets their whole family sit together. Leila and Jackson can snooze in the corner of the kitchen while he, Bobbi, and Hadley work on the pumpkins. If the babies start crying, Bobbi can duck out and calm them without the operation being disrupted. It sounds perfect on paper.

So far it’s going perfect in reality, too. Hadley has a sharpie marker and a pumpkin to design as she chooses, and Hunter’s scooping out the innards of the pumpkin he’s going to carve for Bobbi. His carving skills are rusty, but he’s fairly certain he can manage a mockingbird silhouette for his favorite Mockingbird. (Bobbi would remind him she’s his only Mockingbird, and she’d be right, but it’s still nice to call her his favorite.)

“Daddy,” Hadley says as she continues drawing on her pumpkin, “are the babies gonna go trick-or-treating with me?”

Their version of trick-or-treating on the base is different than a typical child’s Halloween experience, given it’s a secret government base and all. Most of the agents are more than happy to take a minute out of their night to give Hadley a piece of candy when she knocks on their bunk doors, but Hunter still worries it’s depriving her of some critical childhood experience. She doesn’t get to see other kids’ costumes, or tramp around in the cold until her nose is numb.

Hunter wonders often if they should move off the base, but that means leaving their family behind. Maybe, he tells himself, when the twins have grown up a little more.

“Probably not, Hads. The babies sleep a lot, remember?” They didn’t stay awake longer than an hour - two hours was their absolute limit. They wouldn’t remember anything from their first few years of life anyways, and they couldn’t eat the candy, so lugging them around the base just seemed like a way for the babies to collect germs.

“I ‘member,” Hadley answers. “They’re boring.”

Bobbi snorts from her chair in the corner. Leila’s attached to her, suckling, but Jack is asleep in the bassinet next to her. “They’ll be more interesting when they get older, birdie.”

“They’re boring now,” Hadley huffs.

“You used to be boring too, you know.” Hunter reaches over to ruffle her hair.

“Nuh uh.”

“Yuh huh.”

“Nuh uh, Daddy!” Hadley stops drawing on the pumpkin to glare at him. 

“Just ask your aunts and uncles, Hads. You were little when they first met you,” Bobbi says. Leila’s finished her meal, which means now it’s just a matter of coaxing her to sleep. Hunter’s about to offer to take her, but then Hadley shoves her pumpkin in front of him, evidently content with her design.

“Do you got pictures?” Hadley asks. Hunter blinks. He doesn’t remember Hadley ever asking to see pictures of herself as a baby. There are only three from before when she came to the Lighthouse, but many more from after.

“We have some pictures in our bedroom, birdie,” Bobbi answers, gesturing for Hunter to begin carving. She bounces Leila in her arms, making soft shushing noises even as she continues to talk with Hadley.

“Can I see them?”

“Maybe when we’re done carving pumpkins,” Bobbi suggests. Trying to dismantle their setup to go searching for photo albums will be more hassle than it’s worth, especially given Hadley’s attention span.

“Was Uncle Mack ever this small?”

“Yup,” Hunter answers, continuing to move the carving knife to trace Hadley’s Sharpie lines. He hopes she didn’t get the marker all over her hands. He’d ask Bob to check when Leila was asleep.

“Was Mummy?” Hadley asks, propping her elbows on the table so she can get a closer look at Hunter’s carving.

“Yep!”

“Were  _ you _ ?” Hadley asks incredulously.

“Yes, I was.”

“No way!”

“Yes way,” Hunter confirms with a sage nod. “Everyone was once as small as Leila and Jackson are now. Isn’t that crazy?”

“Crazy,” Hadley agrees. “And boring.”

Hunter has to stifle a laugh. “Whatever you say, Hads.” 

Leila’s gone to sleep more easily than Hunter had expected, which means Bobbi’s now free to help with the carving. “We making pumpkin seeds this year, Bob?”

“Was planning on it.” Bobbi ducks down to press a quick kiss to his cheek. “We’ve got the guts, we might as well use them.”

“They’re icky!” Hadley interjects. She had refused to touch the pumpkin guts Hunter had scooped out of her pumpkin, which is probably for the better. Bobbi busies herself with scooping the pumpkin guts into a plastic bowl so she can separate the seeds from the rest of the guts. She’s much better at that part than Hunter is - he doesn’t have the patience for picking off all the orange stuff.

“They’ll taste good when Mummy’s done with them,” Hunter promises.

“...Are you sure, Daddy?”

Hunter barks out a laugh. Their daughter has learned to mistrust Bobbi’s cooking, and he knows he shouldn’t encourage that, but it’s too funny not to.

“Pinkie promise, birdie.” He offers his little finger to Hadley, and she hooks their pinkies together without hesitation. 

Hopefully Hadley likes pumpkin seeds - otherwise he’s going to be in hot water. She had been too little last year to try them; Hunter and Bobbi had feared she wouldn’t chew them all the way and would end up choking herself. Now that she was a little older and knew to chew her food properly, they were less worried about that.

“Daddy?” Hadley asks after a moment of silence.

“Yes, my bird?”

“Are you  _ sure _ we can’t call the babies pumpkin?”

It takes all Hunter’s willpower not to turn to Bobbi with a grin on his face. She’s probably dying a little, but she at least gets to laugh without their daughter questioning it, since Hadley’s still focused on him and Bobbi’s back is to the pair of them while she spread the pumpkin seeds out on a baking sheet to prepare them for roasting.

“I’m sure, baby.” Hunter finishes with the line he’s carving and puts the knife down. “You know why?”

“Why?” Hadley asks, eyes wide.

“Because you, my bird, are the cutest pumpkin in the patch.” Hunter reaches across the table to tickle Hadley, and she squeals happily as she squirms away from him.

“Not… a… pumpkin!” Hadley shrieks in between giggles.

“Then neither are your brother and sister, silly!” Hunter says, ceasing his tickling before Hadley kicks the pumpkin off the table or something equally ridiculous only a four-year-old would be able to manage.

“Fine,” Hadley huffs. “But they’re still boring.”

“Whatever you say, Hads.”


End file.
